A curious thing happens when you live in a vibrant place. When you first arrive, you gobble it up whole. Every play, every festival, every street fair: you go and go and go, and you’re so actively grateful all the time to live in such a generous cultural buffet.

But we’re not designed to live in a state of sustained delight. The extreme emotions and reactions – they devalue over time, if the stimuli are the same. If this happens for you with pain or sadness, that’s for the best, really. But the other side of that is that, no matter what kind of marvelous ongoing circumstances you find yourself in, you won’t be able to constantly delight in them unless you make a real effort. Continue reading →